RSSAnkle monitor didn’t stop Mesa killer
Robert Matile
Collbran town marshal Adam Appelhanz stretches crime scene tape across 48 Road north of the house where two people were discovered dead Thursday.
The head of Mesa County Criminal Justice Services said Friday he didn’t yet know why a county-issued ankle monitor failed to warn anybody prior to the murder of a Mesa woman.
Dennis Berry, director of the county’s Criminal Justice Services, said his staff received no ankle-monitor alert when 47-year-old Robert Allen Matile apparently went on a property he was restrained from at 10389 48 Road. There, he took aim with a shotgun at his estranged girlfriend, 52-year-old LaVon Hoffman.
“Certainly, this is a very tragic situation, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to find out what happened in this case,” Berry said.
The Mesa County Coroner’s Office on Friday said Hoffman died as a result of two shotgun blasts in what was ruled a homicide. Matile then shot himself in the head. The bodies were discovered just before 8 a.m. Thursday inside 10389 48 Road.
Berry said he didn’t know if Matile somehow managed to remove his GPS device without detection. The systems are fitted with tampering alarms. The unit, an ET1 monitor manufactured by Boulder-based BI, was booked Friday as evidence at the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department.
Sgt. Matt Lewis, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, declined to answer questions Friday about the GPS unit or the investigation into the deaths of Matile and Hoffman.
Matile and his GPS unit were court-ordered to be under the supervision of Mesa County Pretrial Services.
The GPS units are designed to alert authorities when they enter programmed “exclusion zones,” such as addresses listed in restraining orders by crime victims, Berry said.
Working properly, they should send signals to pagers, which are worn 24 hours a day by Criminal Justice Services staff, Berry said.
Staff are tasked with notifying law enforcement to respond to potential restraining-order violations in progress.
Matile was fitted by Criminal Justices Services staff with his ankle monitor Jan. 25. The device was a supplemental condition issued by County Court Judge Bruce Raaum for Matile’s release on $1,000 bond at the Mesa County Jail.
Matile had been jailed on suspicion of domestic violence against Hoffman for a Jan. 16 incident at 10389 48 Road.
Hoffman told deputies that Matile punched her with a closed fist and destroyed an intercom system while threatening to rape her children, according to an arrest affidavit.
Another GPS failure
The pace of court-ordered GPS monitoring is increasing in Mesa County. According to Criminal Justice Services data, some 26 people were wearing monitors as of Friday, under the supervision of Mesa County Pretrial Services. In 2011, 55 people were supervised. The totals do not include those serving sentences, including sex offenders, on ankle monitors supervised by Mesa County and other entities.
Matile’s case is the second high-profile failure in recent months for GPS tracking by Mesa County Pretrial Services.
Free on bond, Dartanin Mitchell, 33, managed to remove his monitor undetected before embarking on an alleged crime spree that included a burglary and auto theft and fleeing the state.
Mitchell’s $1,500 GPS unit was found by county staff sitting near the front door of his home on Sept. 26. Mitchell was long gone.
Berry said they believe they learned how Mitchell defeated the device, but he declined to talk about it, citing fears of detailing a how-to guide for those with similar ambitions.
COMMENTS
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.How many more mistakes have to occure before the courts admit Pretrial Services was a mistake?
They are demanding more money, which the people have to pay, they have not emptied or lowered the inmate population (which they claimed would be done) and are over whelmed with paper work and clients. Enough is enough.